


One Of These Days (I Won't Be Able To Ask You Loud Enough)

by blackorchids



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Future Fic, Growing Up Together, Missing Scene, Slow Burn, Through the Years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22481638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: Marriage proposals aren't all they're cracked up to be, Lucas finds. Except for when shemeansit.
Relationships: Isaiah "Zay" Babineaux & Lucas Friar & Maya Hart & Riley Matthews & Farkle Minkus & Isadora Smackle, Lucas Friar & Maya Hart, Lucas Friar/Maya Hart, Maya Hart & Riley Matthews
Comments: 9
Kudos: 122





	One Of These Days (I Won't Be Able To Ask You Loud Enough)

**Author's Note:**

> title disjointed from jason derulo's incredibly romantic song _marry me_
> 
> prompt from tumblr! **gokuderahayatomx** wanted "five times Maya joked about marrying Lucas and one time she actually meant it" hope you like it boo!

Maya is unspeakably reluctant to follow Lucas home on the train the afternoon after they get paired together to form a small business. It takes serious research to be as good at teasing people as she is, but that also means that she knows Lucas comes from a not insubstantial amount of money.

Just because Riley is oblivious, doesn’t mean Maya is unaware of what she looks like. She’s too small and too twitchy and she doesn’t own a single thing that isn’t from Reformation or Jude’s Consignment or Goodwill.

But Lucas’ mom is nice, her southern drawl much more pronounced than her son’s as she welcomes Maya into their modest apartment. It’s clearly nicer than the one Maya and her mom share with Grammy, but it’s not so much bigger that Maya finds herself gaping the way she still sometimes does when Riley’s parents redecorate and the Matthews’ residence takes her by surprise like it’s the first time again.

Lucas’ mom is nice, and her gaze barely skitters over Maya’s too-short shorts and fishnet tights before she’s complimenting Maya’s hand-painted backpack and offering the both of them some food.

They spend the entire afternoon and most of the early evening making too many muffins to count; sifting flour and pouring honey and measuring baking powder and salt and applesauce. When they’re cool enough, Maya is allowed the honor of picking at one while Lucas and his mom start on dinner.

“Tastes like breakfast,” she muses, chewing carefully. “Very health-food.”

Lucas’ mom laughs at her like she’s said something extremely funny, talks about how it’s important to know what goes into your food because it’s important to know what goes into your body. It’s pretty interesting, even if Maya knows for a fact that there’s no way she and her mom would be able to afford to be as careful as she’s telling her they should be.

Maya watches how Lucas and his mom are in the kitchen, the two of them working together in easy tandem. They’re the same height, and they elbow each other playfully as they roll out dough and sprinkle cheese over red-sauce. Maya has never witnessed people _make_ homemade pizza, and when she finally gets to taste it, she groans dramatically in sheer delight.

“Huckleberry, if it means I can eat like this every night, I’ll gladly marry you right now.”

Watching Lucas blush is almost better than the pizza.

Almost.

*

When they’re sophomores, Lucas ditches the football idea to go back to baseball, which is a known quantity. He’s good, too, is the thing, but it’s not aggressive enough to work out any latent frustration issues, so he pesters his dad to send money so he can sign up for boxing on the weekends too.

It means he’s a little busier than he’d like, misses every other group study date that Riley organizes.

So, sometimes, he’s a few steps behind on the friend gossip. Sue him.

When he walks into the Matthews’ condo late, still wearing his baseball pants and feeling the uncomfortable grit of dugout sand beneath his t-shirt collar from a too-hasty face wash, Riley and Zay are standing opposite Farkle and Maya, evidently in the middle of a rousing argument, Smackle sitting primly on the couch between them and _keeping score_.

“Look, Ranger Rick will tell you!” Maya says triumphantly, rounding the couch and striding over to grab Lucas’ arm, tugging him away from the door.

“Hi, sorry, practice ran late,” he says, waving asininely. No one really pays him any attention.

“Huckleberry, when we met on the train in seventh grade, did _I_ ask _you_ out?” Maya demands, staring with narrowed-eyes, at the boys.

She’s still wrapped around his arm, though, which is why Lucas has no problem admitting it. “Yes, and then you broke up with me in the next minute.”

Maya tilts her head, looking smug. “And, Cowboy, who asked who out when we went on that date.”

“Which one?” Lucas asks without thinking, and then grimaces. Their group is back to normal, which is a huge weight off his chest, but he tries not to reference the mind-cluster group of years when he was dating Riley and Maya at the same time, no one willing to choose for the rest of them.

None of them blink though, and Maya hardly hesitates before scoffing. “ _Any_ of them, Huckleberry.”

“You,” Lucas admits, grinning helplessly when she lets go of his arm to pump her fist in the air victoriously.

“It doesn’t matter!” Farkle shouts over her noisy glee. “Even though it’s unorthodox, a girl asking out a boy is _fine_. But _proposing_ is something that _men_ do.”

“Unless, of course, it’s two girls,” Zay cuts in smoothly, and Farkle nods his acknowledgement of the point.

“That’s ridiculous!” Riley protests, crossing her arms and leaning away when Farkle tries to pat her in comfort. “Why can a girl propose to a girl but can’t propose to a boy?”

“Riley, we’re witnessing something very special here today,” Maya says sweetly, stepping back towards her friend and forcing her to duck so she can throw her arm around her shoulders.

“Oh?” Riley asks, curious. “And what’s that?”

“Two boys admitting to our faces that they have wafer-thin masculinity.”

Smackle applauds, and Zay and Farkle both shoot Lucas betrayed looks when he laughs.

Maya pushes through their little cluster to stand toe-to-toe with Lucas. She tilts her head again, considering, before shoving him towards the couch and pressing her little hands against his chest until he’s falling backwards into the cushions.

She squints at him for a minute, before visibly steadying herself and dropping to one knee in front of him.

“Lucas,” Maya says, sweet as pie. “Can we go down to the hoe-downs and city hall and have ourselves a little cowboy weddin’?” 

“If that would please you, ma’am,” Lucas tells her, playing along and tipping his imaginary hat, like his heart isn’t pounding out of his ribcage.

*

Riley’s parents throw a really nice graduation party and let her invite their entire year, and it’s at once lavish and fun and totally too stressful to maintain.

Maya escapes after only a few hours, clambering up the narrow staircase to the rooftop space on top of the building. She ditches the stupid square cap that’s been pinned to her head for the better part of twelve hours and tosses it off the roof like a frisbee.

A confused “Maya?” coming from behind her makes her whirl around, familiar rush of guilt at being caught, but it’s just Lucas, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed and a little smile curling at his lips.

“Hey, Huckleberry,” Maya says, stretching her arms out and spinning again. She feels almost giddy, the excitement of graduating mingling with the bittersweetness of their last summer together. “Just taking in the view.”

Lucas crosses the roof to stand next to her, leaning his elbows against the stone balcony railing and looking out at the city with her. Maya nudges him, bumping her shoulder against his arm, and when he looks over, she looks at him expectantly.

“Riley wants to play the dating game again,” Lucas tells her, and she snorts, shaking her head fondly.

“Best not keep her waiting,” Maya says, fake-solemn, linking elbows with Lucas and making an effort to drag him back towards the stairs.

Lucas stops her for a second, though, breaking their arm-link to step back towards the edge and whip his own grad cap off, sending it careening into the night sky. Maya looks approving when he turns back to her, and he can’t help but grin at her, a little breathless.

“C’mon, _husband_ ,” Maya says teasingly, taking his hand like it’s nothing so she can drag him back down the stairs. “Let’s go _destroy_ the opposition.”

*

Maya had moaned and deflected every time any of them asked her what she wanted for her twenty-first birthday, but Riley figured that meant she wanted all six of them to hang out together and just didn’t want to ask.

So Lucas comes home from Texas and Farkle and Smackle return from L.A. and Zurich respectively and from inside the Matthews’ apartment, they listen to Riley on the other side of the door, yammering about how her parents want to wish her a happy birthday before they go out for dinner.

When they come in through the door, Maya stops dead at seeing him and Zay and Farkle and Smackle lounging in the den, staring back.

“Oh my god,” Maya says. She hugs Riley tight and Lucas knows it’s so she has the time to compose herself before she makes the rounds, hugging each of them and gushing a little about how long it’s been and how much she’s missed them. She’s flushed and happy and hugs Lucas tight, smiling up at him.

Clubbing is not exactly Lucas’ scene, and Riley and Farkle have to get special orange wristbands that tell the bartenders to refuse to serve them because they’re both still twenty, but for Maya, everyone is ready to make an exception.

She and Riley and Zay spin and jump and laugh on the light-up dance floor while Lucas and Farkle and Smackle keep their table safe, watching them and heckling. The girls convince Smackle to join them, and she awkwardly bobs in between Riley and Maya, looking vaguely uncomfortable but happy enough, and Zay drags Farkle out there, twirling him and dipping him dramatically.

The music is loud enough that Lucas can feel it in his chest, and Maya is getting _wasted_ , and Lucas nurses his fruity confection of a drink, sipping from the blue curly straw and enjoying himself.

Riley and Maya and Zay make friends too, talking to everyone their uncoordinated limbs smack into and it’s so _nice_ having everyone back together again for the weekend. Some guy with an honest-to-god Elvis haircut dances with Maya for three songs in a row and Lucas thinks she’s coming to tell him she’s going to go home with him when she heads towards Lucas and their group table.

“See?” Maya’s saying when she gets close. “My husband is just a party-pooper, but I’m honestly not looking.”

Lucas raises his eyebrows at this guy who’s now kind of a villian in his head if Maya’s resorting to lying about their relationship status to get him to back off. She disengages from him to clamber into Lucas’ lap, slumping against him and tasting his drink, knowing Lucas won’t complain.

He wraps his arm around her waist and Elvis bows out, but Maya hardly notices.

*

When Maya is a sophomore in college, Lucas and Riley and Zay are graduating. Taking two years off to sort herself out and do some art and save some money had been one of the hardest decisions of her life, but she knows she’s better for it.

Still, watching your friends all graduate before you is enough to put anyone in a weird mood, and Maya’s always had a chip on her shoulder about stuff like this, so she’s almost pre-destined to be acting like a sociopath while she plans out her finals week, Zay and Riley’s graduation party, and their trip down to Texas to watch Lucas graduate at the end of May. 

It’s a stressful month, is all, and it shows in Maya’s art, bright colors and harsh lines like she never uses. Her advisor loves it, praises her for going out of her comfort zone and talks her up in front of the rest of the class about how _Maya_ doesn’t let one style of art confine her.

When she gets home, she tells her roommate that they have to stop sleeping with each other and she applies for a study abroad program and she rearranges her bedroom furniture and she calls her mom and tells her it’s _fine_ if Katy and Shawn decide to start having kids together. She redownloads Duolingo like she’s actually gonna learn French this time around, and she digs out her old bullet journal again, and she gets wasted on Sherry, in the middle of the day, like she’s eighty two.

It’s embarrassing, but it’s not the worst thing in the world.

No, the worst thing in the world is when, the night before she has to meet Riley’s parents and Zay’s grandma for NYU’s graduation ceremony, Maya impulsively takes a pair of scissors to her head and cuts most of her hair off, rounding off the bad decisions of the night with a set of choppy bangs.

Riley and Zay graduate and nothing really changes, and Maya thinks she’s settled. When they all fly to Texas, though, she packs nothing but weird graphic tees and too many pairs of underwear, which means she has to ask Lucas to take her to buy a fancy-dinner appropriate dress like he’s not _busy_.

He does, though, after complimenting and teasing her about her hair, and Maya rambles about the cinematic parallels between Madagascar and Rogue One like she’s not having a breakdown.

Lucas lets her, though, commentates on each point she makes like this is a reasonable and totally normal topic of discussion.

He kisses her before they get out of the car, and she forgets completely about movies and tasks and everything else but kissing him back.

She picks a blue dress that looks nice with her eyes, and she maybe drinks a little too much expensive wine after the ceremony, because she makes some weird joke about Lucas needing to find a pretty little wife, now that he’s done with college. It makes Riley snort with laughter, though, so it must not be that bad of a joke.

She still burns with a blush, though.

*

When Lucas wakes up for the third day in a row with Maya already awake and painting in the living room, he knows something is up. Maya is legions better at figuring herself out than when they were kids, but he knows better than anyone that sometimes it’s still hard for her to verbalize her crises.

It’s his day off, though, which means he doesn’t have to get dressed and be anywhere in the next forty minutes, so he pads out of their bedroom in just his plaid pajama bottoms, his bare feet slapping a little against the hardwood floors. She’s wearing one of his old Sam Adams’ Baseball shirts, stretched out in the collar and tight around her ass.

Lucas reads and watches her paint, little flowers being added to a bright, sprawling sky, peaceful melody of an acoustic guitar being strummed out over the speakers on either side of their tv and they spend the morning in comfortable near-silence. After the playlist loops back around, Lucas goes to make them a stack of grilled cheeses.

Maya snaps out of her trance when he starts frying up the bacon, and she comes over to the kitchen sniffing and humming and Lucas _loves_ her.

They eat standing over the sink, jostling one another for more room and getting crumbs everywhere.

Maya finishes first because Lucas is having two, and she waits until his mouth is ungainly full, too stuffed to even think about speaking.

And then she says, “Let’s get married.”

**Author's Note:**

> come send me a prompt on [tumblr!](http://www.rosalinesbenvolio.tumblr.com/)


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